McGregor vs Craig

Suppression was lifted at 5 pm yesterday on the proceedings and decisions of the Human Rights Review Tribunal pertaining to Rachel McGregor and Colin Craig.

They can only be described as absolutely damning for Colin Craig.

It is important to note that these proceedings were not made available to the jury in the defamation trial. They made their decision without even knowing about these. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been for Craig if they had known.

The first decision is here. McGregor filed her claim of sexual harrassment on the day she resigned, 18 September 2014. A settlement was made on 4 May 2015 which was confidential. The terms included no comment to the media other than “the parties have met and resolved their differences”. The settlement included an apology from Craig for any inappropriate conduct on his part to MacGregor.

The ruling reveals that Craig increased the interest rate on the “loan” to MacGregor from 4% to 29% after she lodged the sexual harassment claim.

Craig them undertook various media activities in June and July 2015 which breached this agreement. Craig then on 31 August tried to get the settlement agreement voided on the grounds McGregor had broken confidentiality. They found she had not. She had told a few very close people of what had happened (including Jordan Williams) but this was before the mediation and settlement. Since the settlement she observed the terms entirely. So Craig failed to get the settlement voided.

The Tribunal did find that Craig breached the settlement. Specifically:

the breaches of the 4 May 2015 settlement agreement have been deliberate, systematic, egregious and repeated.

They also note:

We accept the submission for Ms MacGregor that far from turning his mind to how little he could damage Ms MacGregor, Mr Craig was controlling the narrative. He was exercising power and control over what was in the media by carefully releasing what he thought would save himself, what he thought would save his position and save his reputation. The released information was selected not after a careful navigation to avoid breaching the confidentiality as little as possible, but to paint himself as a person who had been falsely accused by a woman who was clearly incapable of managing her money and a fair inference was that what she was seeking through the sexual harassment complaint was money

They further find:

The breaches of the confidentiality obligations have been deliberate, sustained and calculated.

And in his filings he said:

Mr Craig’s claimed consideration for Ms MacGregor must be seen against the fact that his brief of evidence, as filed and read into evidence, was correctly described by Ms MacGregor as nothing short of a vilification of her. He referred to her as unreliable, as dishonest, as of wanting a sexual relationship with him, being obsessed with him and referring to her supposed mental health issues.

Nasty stuff.

Mr Craig is wealthy, well-connected and well advised. At all times he has been in a more powerful position than Ms MacGregor. He has used his power and his wealth to conduct a calculated campaign of breaches for the sole purpose of bolstering, or attempting to bolster, his own reputation. He has disregarded his obligations under the Human Rights Act and the settlement agreement.

Each utterance has had the effect of diminishing the reputation of Ms MacGregor by portraying her as variously a mistress, a trouble-maker, a woman who cannot manage her own life, a woman with no financial management skills, who is mentally unwell and, in evidence before the Tribunal, a liar and a blackmailer.

They then awarded damages of $128,780 – the highest amount ever awarded in New Zealand by the Tribunal for emotional harm

This is on top of the $36,000 of the original settlement and around $100,000 of MacGregor’s costs.

deadrightkev

altiora

Actually you have a religious mindset: constantly looking for a conservative saviour who will lead this country to the path of righteousness.

Afraid to say CC ain’t that saviour. Nor was Capill or Graeme Lee.

The problem resides in the conservative lobby’s inability to articulate policies that convince voters, and it’s position that such a tiresome necessity as that can be avoided by having a charismatic leader.

thedavincimode

I find it all very perplexing milky. Craig has now descended into tele-evangelist territory. Why is it that the ones who seem most disposed towards telling everyone else how to live their lives have such feet of clay? Perhaps preaching to the rest of us is a distraction from their own shortcomings. Oh, and then of course, there’s the cash …

mikenmild

Well, it would be a very happy circus now, as we would have Colin Craig clinging to a seat in Parliament, insisting he had done nothing wrong, etc, etc. So you have outlined a scenario even more entertaining than what is happening now.

It would certainly keep us all on our seats 😉 Popcorn sales would be through the roof (on all ‘sides’) and we might achieve an even greater consensus than we have now: Colin Craig may, just may, live in the wrong country. Imagine the opportunities he’d have for day-time talk shows if he’d done this in the US?

sooty

What would happen if he did get more than 5% and was now a MP. Would he be chucked out, would he still be leader etc. Imagine with both him and Fat Slob Crim and his rabel in parliment. I think nz should be thankful that all that lot missed out.

Wangas Feral

sooty

How deep in the financial hole is he now? All up, there’s more than $1.5m in damages to Jordan Williams and Rachel McGregor, but probably as much again in legal fees; after all, a four week defamation trial doesn’t come cheap with all those lawyers clocking up fees.

It’s time to cut and run Colin. Settle the other cases, take your licks, and go back to property developing. Stay out of public life, do good things for the world, and us fair-minded Kiwis might eventually forgive you. But if you try to live your life in the media again, you’re fair game.

WineOh

duggledog

And by the way, Colin.

If you do make a comeback, please, please, please employ a decent minder.

How he allowed himself to be interviewed by that journalist in the sauna is beyond me.

Any right of centre politician is fair game, including the PM. Where were the eyes when that dreadful creep left the microphone on the table in the cafe for Key and Banks? I actually couldn’t believe that was not spotted. It was sitting there in plain view.

xy

—
In his evidence Mr Williams confirmed Mr Bevan’s account of the November 2014
discussion and that he (Mr Williams) had given Mr Bevan an assurance he would keep
the information confidential as if Ms MacGregor were a client. Mr Williams also
confirmed to the Tribunal he had subsequently received from Ms MacGregor an email dated 18 June 2015 asking him to return any copies of letters she had received from Mr
Craig and asking that he not make any copies as she did not want the letters used against Mr Craig. Mr Williams further told the Tribunal he ignored the email and was the person who
took the two photographs of the poems
subsequently published on the Whale Oil blog
.
He took these steps knowing he did not have Ms MacGregor’s permission to photograph or distribute the documents
—

Why would anyone ever trust this person again? Was given documents to store as a lawyer, stored in his law firm’s safe, assured Macgregor and another lawyer he was keeping them confidential as a lawyer, and then handed them to the media to be used as a political attack.

ross411

xy

‘Mr Williams confirmed Mr Bevan’s account
of the November 2014
discussion and that he (Mr Williams) had given Mr Bevan an assurance he would keep
the information confidential as if Ms MacGregor were a client. ‘

mikenmild

thedavincimode

Well yes – exactly. That said, for these purposes I’m quite happy to proceed on the basis that Williams’ reputation is worth a million smackeroos. I just assumed that the jury dislikes craig as much as the rest of the country.

thedavincimode

labrator

I don’t understand that valuation either but I guess in the context of Craig’s huge resources one-sidedly crushing McGregor’s reputation in the public domain William’s actions might have been seen in a different light (righting a wrong).

I was kind of hoping that they’d find in favour of Williams but award him one dollar, just to make it clear that he may be less of a douchebag than Craig, but not so much less of one that somebody gots to be giving him some money or something. That jury must have really, really disliked Colin Craig…

alex Masterley

I agree with your comments about Mr Williams.
He does not come out of this exercise covered with glory.
His conduct was, in my opinion, not what would be expected of some-one with his qualifications.
Indeed I think he should shoulder in part the blame for some of the pain that Ms McGregor has been enduring.

SGA

altiora

I think the real “weapons grade scum bag” is CC and all his supporters on here who won’t even acknowledge his numerous misdeeds and instead are trying to make out that Williams is the true villain.

Funny that the indictment of CC was reached by a jury of the parties’ peers. The same people whom CC thought should be able to have binding referenda. Yet when those people reach the decision they did, CC and his delusional idiots try to suggest the decision was perverse.

If there is any need for further evidence that CC had constructed a cult masquerading as a political party, watching his few remaining devotees on this site obfuscate the obvious should provide sufficient evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

altiora

Possibly but Williams’ actions did have the desirable outcome of expediting the demolition of the CC’s circus act. So in retrospect, I guess that it can be commended.

Williams was also acting in his organisation’s self interest to cut loose of the CC Titanic. Without presenting the documents as proof, he ran the risk that CC would just deny and his party members would believe him .

Not an easy position to be in. So I do think Williams needs to be cut some slack.

thedavincimode

hmmokrightitis

But TDVM colon was the distilled essence of conservative.
Just the man we needed to show it to those filthy Marxist prog hippy scum.
Conservative family values is what we need to make this country great.
At lest DRK is a faithful adherent to the one true path.
All the other former supporters are conservative in name only.
Time for a name and shame ?

Paulus

I am amazed that the shenanigans of one stupid man infatuated by a stupid woman could cause the MSM and the second rate scum media to give so much attention tho this.
If she did not like his attention then why did she not just leave – was it only money, as she implies.
It is the scum media elements that I find interesting where they are exerting their power to control what the public are hearing.
It is the Rawsharks, the Whale Oils, the Hagars, the so called media writers aided and abetted by the Parliamentary Press Gallery of left wing dames on TV regularly.
Who said after the last election effectively “why did nobody do what we wanted”.
Standing back somewhat I would suggest that John Key take a good look at the enemies who are determined to undermine both him and New Zealand, in whichever way possible.
Getting like current America ?

Because his level of certainty, and willingness to fight such a hopeless cause in such a public way, is very narcissistic and she married such a man. That isn’t condemnation, and maybe there are other motives that we are unaware of, but she’s clearly willing to put up with this behaviour (this is not a singular incident in the public space and it’s unlikely he isn’t like this in ordinary life).

peterwn

The decision that the Tribunal result not be part of the High Court proceedings badly booby-trapped Bob McCoskrie of Family First and Garth McVicar of Sensible Sentencing. If they were aware of the Human Rights Tribunal decision they may not have been so keen to take the stand to say supportive things about Colin Craig. They now have some egg on their faces.

howitis

Whether they knew about it or not – and they should not have known about a sealed settlement – they nonetheless exercised very poor judgement in assessing someone especially as this had been going on for up to two days before the 2014 election and for three years prior.
They were in close proximity to judge during those final months up to September 2014.

Their endorsement of this lanky critter who hangs out in saunas with known homosexuals (no disrespect Mr Farrier) shows that whether they knew about the fuller picture of Kooky Colon they certainly have poor radar on assessing people. Their endorsement of this lanky dude remains in court records forever and in the media records for a long time. We don’t love you long time, Col.

I have never met CC but had a clear picture that he is not someone to follow let alone endorse ….and on such a public stage. I think many of his associates judgement is bought into question as they saw this individual as a meal ticket to political power.
This Con Party convenient alliance plus the Dotcom/Hadfield/Harre/Corkery et al toxic alliance sure produced a heady 2014 election festival that somewhat normalises the current US Prez race.
3.97% result. We dodged a bullet.

hmmokrightitis

Oh god, my eyes…I read until I got to… “The thing about the Conservatives was that even though their leader turned out to be a weak and foolish man, they did manage to wedge open a small crack…” and at that point I decided I didn’t know where he was going with that and closed the page.

Poor old red. Dark days, dark days indeed. What with all the Progressivisimimssims (needs capitalisation of course)

trout

I have some sympathy for Williams; Rachel was crying on his shoulder while Craig was slagging her off to anybody who would listen. Williams had the evidence that he thought would bring the vilification to an end if he showed it to the right people. ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions …..’ and all that.

howitis

Without referring to the parties in this particular case it seems very wrong that people can get massive payouts for reputational damage or hurt feeling whereas due to ACC one can suffer permanent injury from a violent beating from someone and are unable to sue for damages.

In most cases the criminal would have no money but in some case they would and you should be about to recover damages.

Colin could make better use of his money and go see a shrink. I think it highly likely he could have been bullied as a child. What he was doing with his wealth was a form of bullying. I can call you a liar but if you call me a liar I will sue. Fortunately, I do not think he will be able to do so anymore.

This will be great news for NZF. The policies of the parties are very similar as Colin copied many of the policies from the NZF website. They will pick up nearly all that is left of the Conservative Party vote.

If the CP Board were smart they would enter in to discussions with Winston.

The CP Board is almost as stupid as you Kevin. They have finally accepted that Colin has damaged the CP and they do not want him back.

However, they have not accepted what everyone else has that the CP has not chance of getting any MP in Parliament. They are 0.4% on the sidebar average of polls.

That will soon drop to 0.1% or 0.0%. Unlike UF and ACT there no party that would help them with a seat. Even if National decided to try it would not work and it would cost National at the polls for being so stupid.

We can pontificate on Williams actions but the Jury , clearly, did not agree that he was culpable. Moreover, we have NOT heard all the evidence and cross examiation – just media reports. The jury heard all.

Now…. is there anyone prepared to wager that the HC and HRT decisions will be suppressed when the next cases go trial ????????

deadrightkev

Winston joined parliament in 1987 at the expense of Malcolm Douglas. Douglas won the electorate fair and square but on a dodgy recount through a Peters legal appeal over invalid signatures it was overturned. Then the for the invalid signatory rule was changed a year or two later.

In 29 years Peters has delivered a bus card to old retards like you in return for stealing $158K of taxpayers money plus expenses for running his MPs, etc. Still think he has the potential to deliver the promised land in 2016? Now who is stupid?

Craig might be down but I would back him to actually deliver on equal terms for members given the opportunity.

hmmokrightitis

Highly unlikely drk. With an ego the size that he obviously has, he’s interested in one thing – himself. To think that he can run for public office whilst trying to place himself into the sexy bits of someone who works for him shrieks of the worst kind of over-inflated ego and feelings of entitlement. And if there was more to it than that, it would have come out in the trail. Maybe it will in the next 3 😀

In my experience morons who cant think past their todger don’t make great leaders of anything. Yes, there may well be a right wing party at some point in NZ’s future. Who knows, it may even be a resurgent ACT. But Im fairly certain its not going to be lead by the King of the Verse.

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig cuts a likable, boyish figure: whether managing his billion dollar property portfolio, canvasing for votes in his home turf of Auckland’s North Shore, or lathering himself with soap as he prepares to show me around his new hi-tech pleasure dungeon, Craig is unceasingly cheerful and energetic.

‘I bought this place to relax,’ he explains, a little sheepish about splashing out on such an indulgence. Craig is famed for his frugality, furnishing his home second-hand on Trade-me. But all the leather, chrome and rubber decor in ‘Colin’s Crypt of Agony and Ecstasy ‘ is brand new and gleaming, ready for use. ‘At the end of the day I’m wiped out, and I needed a way to wind down,’ he added.